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An Incident of the 
Alabama Claims Arbitration 




"STEADFAST FOR GOD AND COUNTRY 



BY RALPH E. PRIME, D.C.L., LL.D. 
Past Governor General of the General Court 



READ BEFORE 

THE NEW YORK SOCIETY 

OF THE 

ORDER OF THE FOUNDERS AND 
PATRIOTS OF AMERICA 

MARCH 23, 1906 



Gift 
The Society 



No. 14 



An Incident of the 
Alabama Claims Arbitration 




"STEADFAST FOR GOD AND COUNTRY 



BY RALPH E. PRIME, D.C.L., LL.D. 

Past Governor General of the General Court 



READ BEFORE 

THE NEW YORK SOCIETY 

OF THE 

ORDER OF THE FOUNDERS AND 
PATRIOTS OF AMERICA 



MARCH 23, 1906 



<J^rV^ \ y 



E 5^<\ 



THE NEW YORK SOCIETY 

OF THE 

Order of the Founders and Patriots of America 



OFFICERS 

FOR THE YEAR ENDING APRIL IQ, I906 

Governo?' 
THEODORE FITCH 

Deputy Governor 
WALTER SETH LOGAN 

Chaplain 
Rev. EDWARD PAYSON JOHNSON, D.D. 

Secretary 
HOLLISTER LOGAN 

Treasurer 
GEORGE CLINTON BATCHELLER 

State Attorney 
HENRY WICKES GOODRICH 

Registrar 
WINCHESTER FITCH 

Genealogist 
CLARENCE ETTIENNE LEONARD 

Historian 
HENRY LINCOLN MORRIS 

Councillors 

Hon. WILLIAM WINTON GOODRICH 

CoL. RALPH E. PRIME 

WILLIAM ALLEN MARBLE 

THEODORE GILMAN 
HOWARD SUMNER ROBBINS 

JAMES LE BARON WILLARD 

CoL. HENRY W. SACKETT 

EDWARD HAGAMAN HALL 

COLGATE HOYT 



AN INCIDENT OF THE 
ALABAMA CLAIMS ARBITRATION 

By Ralph E. Prime, D.C.L., LL.D. 

[ The writer appreciates that there are some matters in the paper which do not 
strictly belong to the incident, but he believes that they are necessary, to many who 
do not know the story of the Alabama, for a full understanding of the incident, "l 

No man who ever knew Benjamin Franklin Stevens, who was 
for so many years the American Despatch Agent at London, 
England, but valued that acquaintance. Mr. Stevens was a rare 
man, and, notwithstanding his long residence in England, he 
was a thorough American and an intense lover of his country. 
He was born in Vermont in 1833, and after a short experience 
at the Capitol of that State, at Albany and at Washington, he 
was called to London to aid his brother, who had preceded him 
to England. He became so useful to Americans that his merits 
were recognized, and in 1866 he was appointed Despatch Agent 
for the United States of America, resident at London, and con- 
tinued to discharge his duties as such as long as he lived. He 
died in 1904. 

It was my privilege to form his acquaintance about ten years 
ago on one of my visits to London, and ever afterwards when I 
visited that city I enjoyed his fellowship, and looked forward to 
it as one of the pleasures of my vacation. 

Mr. Stevens' service extended over so many years of our na- 
tional history, in its most stirring times, in which he must have 
been an actor, that his memory must have been stored with many 
incidents, intensely interesting, connected with the history of 
our country and yet unknown to written history. 

On one of my visits to England with my wife and daughters 
I spent nearly a week with Mr. Stevens and his wife in the 
George Hotel at Winchester. Sometimes together we were off 
in the daytime visiting things that interested both of us, and 
then again he and I would be off in the daytime separately, each 
visiting something of interest to himself, and in the evenings we 



would sit together in the enclosed and covered garden and talk 
until late, while he entertained us with incidents which had hap- 
pened during his residence in London. During that week he 
told me many such events, in which he was an actor himself, 
and which were of absorbing interest to me, and are utterly un- 
known to the mass of Americans, and have never been written, 
and which are probably even now unknown to any one connected 
with any recent administration of the national government. 

I have been invited to write, as nearly as I can recall, the state- 
ment which Mr. Stevens made to me concerning one of those in- 
cidents, and which, so far as memory serves me, I have never 
spoken of to exceed on four occasions. 

But to the appreciation of it by many of the generation since 
born, and who never learned much about its details, it will be 
necessary briefly to recall other things connected with the his- 
tory of the Civil War, and there are many older persons who at 
the time were of mature years, but to whom, with the flight of 
time and the fullness of these later years, those events are at 
least very dim to recollection, and for them we will be excused 
if we to some extent recall some of the events of those days, and 
details which perhaps even they never knew. 

The great and detestable heresy of the right of a State to se- 
cede from the American Union probably had its birth in Massa- 
chusetts as early as the differences of 1808, Encouraged by the 
disloyal acts thus early of New England men, John C. Calhoun, 
a Southern man, a citizen of South Carolina, and then Vice- 
President of the United States, in 1830 set forth his form of the 
heresy under the name of Nullification. Andrew Jackson, 
another Southern man, a native of the Carolinas, but a citizen 
of Tennessee, was then President of the United States, and to him 
the nation owes a like debt as to Abraham Lincoln, for Andrew 
Jackson, with the ardor and violence of his Southern nature, 
stamped out that crime with a remarkable proclamation, and by 
his even more remarkable threat that for the first overt act he 
would place John C. Calhoun, the great Nullifier, and Vice- 
President of the United States, behind bars. In November, i860, 
Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States ; 
and from that time, if not before, commenced preparation for 
secession of the Southern States from the Union, the greatest 
crime against our country which history records, and which 



then ripened, and in April, 1861, culminated in the first acts of 
overt resistance to law and authorit)' in our great Civil War. 

The war was on. The Southern coast was effectuallj^ block- 
aded against the entry of ships into Southern ports, and the is- 
sue of ships from them, and the blockade was officially pro- 
claimed to the world. 

For a long time before those events the subject of the aboli- 
tion of privateering and treatment as pirates of vessels of war 
having letters of marque had occupied the attention of Great 
Britain, France and the United States and other nations. Ne- 
gotiations toward an agreement to that end had extended over 
several years, and up to i86ihad not resulted in the adoption of 
that international rule. At that time, when the powers were all 
of one mind. Great Britain refused to enter into the agreement 
with the United States unless it was also agreed that it should 
not apply to the two belligerents in the American War then on. 
Thus, perhaps inferentially, but later in other clearer language, 
all in harmony with the desire of the shipbuilders and mer- 
chants of England, was there a recognition of the belligerency 
of the rebellious Southern States and a distinct position taken of 
unfriendliness to this country. These matters were publicly ex- 
ploited in speeches delivered in the two houses of Parliament 
and by the Ministers of the Queen in public addresses all over 
the Kingdom, and the position of the government on the ques- 
tions, then acute, no doubt encouraged in their acts such of the 
English people who were of that mind, and also naturally resulted 
in supineness and carelessness of public officials in the perform- 
ance of the duties they owed to our country, then in fact and in 
law a friendly power. This was so much so that Mr. Laird, the 
builder of the Alabama, and a member of Parliament, in a speech 
in the House of Commons, found it easy, as he desired, to avow 
and defend his acts. Happily in the change of English senti- 
ments toward us and ours toward them, such conditions have 
forever ceased and the results can never occur again. 

As early as October, 1861, agents of the Rebel States con- 
tracted with the Laird Company for the building of a ship of 
war, named the Alabama. Another English firm contracted also 
to build another ship of war for the Rebel States, called the 
Florida. The Alabama was the larger vessel, and her building 
progressed more slowly. The Alabama was launched May 15, 



8 

i862, and made her trial trip June 12, and June 23, our Minister, 
Mr. Adams called the attention of Lord Russell, the British Sec- 
tary of Foreign Affairs, to the character of the vessel, and an 
examination was made, and the commissioners reported to the 
British Secretary that she was evidently a war vessel, and that 
the information given by Mr. Adams was correct. An order 
was given for the detention of the vessel, but was so intention- 
ally slow in transmission that she was allowed to escape, and she 
was actually manned on the coast of the Island of Anglesia on 
the Welsh Coast with the full knowledge of the British officers 
at Liverpool. 

Practically the same is the story of the Florida and the 
Sumter, two other vessels. 

The funds for building these vessels and for their armament 
and supplies, and for the money chests on board, as also for 
their subsequent supplies, was furnished at Liverpool and other 
British ports, of all of which our Minister apprised the Brit- 
ish Secretary, who refused to interfere, alleging want of proof, 
and took no steps to ascertain the facts for himself. He was, as 
early as March, 1863, apprised by Mr. Adams of what was going 
on, and that had called out from Lord Russell a letter, in which 
he stated clearly enough the duty of the British Government in 
the premises. 

Our own navy was busy enough in its blockade of our South- 
ern coast, and the Alabama and the other Rebel craft had almost 
free course in all other waters, and preyed upon our merchant 
ships on all the seas, and also on the vessels of the Treasury, 
which were unarmed or only slightly armed, and pursued their 
business of supplying the lighthouses and other peaceful duties. 

The end of the depradations of these vessels was gradually 
accomplished. The end of the Alabama was a great event of 
the Civil War. She came into the port of Cherbourg for supplies 
and repairs in June, 1864. Our sloop of war, the Kearsarge, in 
command of Captain Winslow, was in those waters, and at 
Flushing, in the Netherlands, and hearing of the arrival of the 
Alabama at Cherbourg, immediately proceeded there, and, send- 
ing a boat ashore, steamed out of the harbor and took station 
outside, and maintained a close watch on the port. Semmes, 
the commander of the Alabama, had long warred against de- 
fenceless merchant ships, and could not afford to refuse battle 



now, for the first time forced upon him, by a foe of nearly his 
own strength. For four days he remained in the port preparing 
for battle. On the 8th of June, a Sunday, the Alabama came 
out of the harbor escorted by a French man-of-war and by a 
British yacht, the Deerhound. The high French shores were 
covered with spectators to see the fight. The Kearsarge, which 
had lain off the eastern entrance of the harbor, steamed far out- 
side the three-mile limit, and to a point full seven miles off shore, 
to prevent Semmes running away if the battle should be against 
him, and then turned and steamed for the enemy. The Kearsarge 
was the faster boat. She had a few more men and a few heavier 
guns, but in point of the number of guns, the Alabama had one 
more than the Kearsarge, and in the battle actually fired twice as 
many shots as did the Kearsarge. But the real advantage of the 
Kearsarge was that she was manned by Americans and patriots, 
while the crew of her adversary were largely foreigners and hire- 
lings. The Alabama opened the battle and the Kearsarge re- 
received a full broadside, and a second, and part of a third. It 
was before the era of ironclad ships, and Captain Winslow had 
hung the sides of his vessel with chain cables. This device 
proved, however, to be of no material value, for only two of the 
shots from the Alabama struck those cables, in places, too, 
where, if the cables had not been there, they could have done no 
serious injury. The vessels sailed in a circle, firing upon each 
other. They made seven complete circuits of the circle. The 
battle continued for more than an hour, when the Alabama 
headed for shore to escape, and then it was that she exposed a 
vulnerable spot, which the guns of the Kearsarge blew out, and 
she began sinking and was rapidly filled, and being headed off 
by the Kearsarge, Semmes struck his flag, but soon the vessel 
sank forever below the waters of the English Channel. The 
Deerhound came up and assisted in saving the ship's company 
and sailed off with those it rescued to Southampton. It was 
an unpardonable act. The crew, helpless in the water, were 
part of the fruits of the victory, and belonged to the Kearsarge, 
and should have been surrendered to the victorious commander, 
whose officers, seeing the contemptible act, implored him to turn 
his guns on that vessel. 

Such was the end of the Alabama. And after this long intro- 
duction, now for the story I am to relate. 



lO 

The Treaty of Washington was negotiated for the settlement 
of controversies between the United States of America and the 
Kingdom of Great Britain. It was negotiated in March, April 
and May, 1871. The high commissioners comprised, on the part 
of the United States of America, five well-known Americans, 
namely, Hamilton Fish, then our Secretary of State; General 
Robert G. Schenck, then our Minister to the Court of St. James; 
Hon. Samuel Nelson, then one of the justices of the Supreme 
Court of the United States; Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, of Massa- 
chusetts, and Senator George Henry Williams, of Oregon ; and 
on the part of Gieat Britain, five of the best-known subjects of 
the Queen of Great Britain, namely, the Earl of Grey and Ripon, 
also Viscount Goderich and Baron Grantham, a Baronet, a Peer 
of the United Kingdom, &c.,&c., and at the time Lord President 
of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council, &c., &c.; the 
Right Honorable Sir Stratford Henry Northcote, Baronet, one 
of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council; Sir Edward 
Thornton, Baronet, &c., then the Minister of Great Britain to 
the United States, Sir John A. McDonald, the Canadian states- 
man, and Mr. Montague Bernard, of Oxford University. After 
thirty-six conferences of these high commissioners, the conven- 
tion or Treaty was concluded at Washington in May, 1871, and 
is known as the Treaty of Washington, and the ratifications 
were exchanged June 17, 1871. The Treaty provided for the 
settlement of differences between the two governments, and prin- 
cipally the settlement of the claims generally known as the 
"Alabama Claims." 

In its first Article it provided for the formation of a tribunal 
of arbitration, composed of five arbitrators. The second Article 
provided for the meeting of the tribunal at Geneva, in Switzer- 
land. The third Article provided for the delivery in duplicate 
of a written or printed case of each of the two parties to each of 
the arbitrators, and to the agent of the other party, "as soon as 
may be after the organization of the tribunal, but within a period 
not exceeding six months from the date of the exchange of rati- 
fications of this Treaty." The fourth Article provided that 
within four months after the delivery of such case either party 
might in like manner deliver in duplicate to each of the arbi- 
trators and to the agent of the other party a counter-case, aind the 
second paragraph of that Article provided that the arbitrators 



might extend the time for the delivery of such counter-case when 
in their judgment it becomes necessary in consequence of the 
distance of the place from which evidence to be presented is to 
be procured. 

The day of the week on which the ratifications were exchanged 
was Saturday, and, as stated, the seventeenth day of June, 1871. 
The six months mentioned in Article III would have expired with 
the eighteenth day of December, 1871, which was Monday. 

While sitting together one of those evenings in Winchester, 
with Mr. Stevens, something suggested the Treaty of Washington 
and the Alabama claims arbitration, and Mr. Stevens related to 
me the incident I am about to relate, and which I will attempt 
to recall as nearly as I can — as Mr. Stevens told it — although 
after this lapse of time, nine years and more, I cannot pretend 
to give his exact words, and hence they must be mine, as nearly 
as I can repeating Mr. Stevens' story as he told it to me. 

He had received, as the Agent for the American Government, 
a cop)'^ of the case of that government, and being the agent of the 
government for all such purposes, he was looking out for the 
arrival of the duplicate copies to be delivered to the British 
Government, and that was the reason why his attention was 
upon it. The last steamer which could have brought those 
copies for the British Government had arrived, and sufficient 
time had elapsed for bringing the package to him from Liver- 
pool, but no package had come. His interest in the matter, and 
his general interest for all that belonged to his people and his 
country, led him on that Saturday, December 16, 187 1, to take 
a hansom cab and drive to the office of General Schenck, the 
American Minister. He entered the office and soon saw General 
Schenck, and asked him if he had received the American case, to 
which General Schenck replied, "Oh, yes; there it lies upon my 
table," pointing to it. "But," said Mr. Stevens, "have you re- 
ceived the duplicate copies to be delivered to the British Gov- 
ernment?" Mr. Schenck replied that he had not. "Well," said 
Mr. Stevens, " I think I will drive to the British foreign office 
and see if they have been sent there direct." Whereupon he 
left the American Embassy, called another cab, and drove in it 
to Downing Street and to the office of the British Secretary of 
Foreign Affairs, and soon had an audience with the British 
Secretary, of whom he inquired had he received the copies of 



the American case pursuant to the Treaty of Washington. He 
was told that they had not been received. " Well," said Mr. 
Stevens, "I suppose that you will extend the time in case they 
do not come?" "Oh, no," said the British Minister, "there is 
no provision in the Treaty for the extending of the time for the 
service by either party of their case, but there is a provision in 
the Treaty for extending the time for service of the counter-case, 
and I am bound to suppose that the learned and distinguished 
representatives of both countries in drafting that convention or 
treaty had the best of reasons for making a difference of provis- 
ion in the one case from the other, and for using different lan- 
guage as to one act to be done, than as to the other act to be 
done, and that by so saying that the time might be extended for 
the delivery of the counter-case they meant it, and by not saying 
so as to the time within which the case itself was to be delivered, 
they consequently meant that there should not be any extension 
of time." Mr. Stevens asked: "What will be the result in case 
you do not receive the case within the limited time?" The Brit- 
ish Secretary replied: "There is but one result that can follow, 
and that is that the failure to deliver the case within the stipu- 
lated time is an abandonment of the provisions of the Treaty by 
the government that fails of compliance with that provision of 
the Treaty." After the exchange of proper courtesies Mr. Stev- 
ens left him, and, calling a cab again, drove hurriedly back to 
the American Embassy, and was again in the presence of Gen- 
eral Schenck, to whom he related what had transpired between 
himself and the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs. " Well," 
said General Schenck, "it is none of your business and none of 
mine; neither you nor I have failed in any duty; the responsibility 
must rest where it belongs — upon those who have failed in the 
performance of their duty." " But," said Mr. Stevens, " will you 
do nothing?" To which General Schenck replied," Nothing." Mr. 
Stevens then said to General Schenck: "Will you lend me your 
copy of the case ?" "No," said General Schenck, "you have your 
copy, and this copy belongs in the archives of the Embassy." 
"Well," said Mr. Stevens," General Schenck, suppose it is missing, 
what then ?" " Oh," said General Schenck, " I do not think it will 
matter much; I do not think I will take any notice of it if it is 
missing." Wherepon Mr. Stevens quietly backed to the table 
upon which the document lay, and passed his hands behind him 



13 

and took the thin book (less than one inch in thickness), and 
slipped it into the skirt pocket of his coat, and quietly bade 
General Schenck "Good-morning" and again took a street cab. 
Said he to me: " I knew that my printer had a new font of type, 
which, as nearly as I could judge, was such a counterpart of the 
type from which the American case had been printed, a copy of 
which I had, that no one but an expert printer would be able to 
distinguish between the two fonts. It was Saturday, and it was 
nearly noon, and the beginning of the customary Saturday half- 
holiday approached. Arriving at the printer's office I observed 
the typesetters all coming down-stairs, and I accosted them, 
asking where they were going, to which I received a reply 
that it was the Saturday half-holiday and the 12 o'clock hour 
was striking; and I shouted to the line, *'A shilling a day to 
each one of you who will return to his case." The line turned 
back. Mr. Stevens, as he said, entered the foreman's room and 
produced General Schenck's copy of the case and also his own 
copy, and he said to the foreman: "You have a new font of type, 
I know, from which you can reproduce this book, and I want to 
have it reproduced by Monday morning early. It must be done 
although to-morrow is Sunday, for great issues hang upon it." 
"But," said the foreman, "it cannot be done; this is Saturday 
half-holiday this afternoon, and all of the typesetters are "-one 
by this time." "Oh, no," said Mr. Stevens; "I have met tliem 
on the stairs and promised them a shilling a day apiece for 
every man who would return to his case, and they have all gone 
back." " Well," said the foreman, " if that is so, it can be done." 
And the foreman and Mr. Stevens took the two copies of the 
case and tore them to pieces and they were distributed to the 
compositors, and Mr. Stevens left the printer's office with the 
assurance that the job would be done and 100 copies of it printed 
in sheets by Monday morning at 9 o'clock. Mr. Stevens, leaving, 
took with him the single lithograph print contained in the book 
(it was a rough map of our Southern coast, the Gulf of Mexico 
and the islands— the Antilles and the Bahamas), and d/ove at 
once to a lithographer's and made the same arrangements with 
him to have 100 copies of the lithograph plate ready at the same 
time on Monday morning. He then drove to a case-maker and 
binder and made the same arrangement to have 100 cases ready 
in which to insert the book on Monday morning at 9 o'clock, and 



14 

then he went home assured that he controlled the situation. On 
that Monday morning, at the hour appointed, he appeared at the 
printer's office and took into his hands the sheets of the loo 
copies printed complete (even to the typographical errors in the 
original copies), and drove to the lithographer's, where he 
secured the loo copies of the lithograph print, and with the 
whole drove to the case-maker's, where he deposited his load. 
Four copies of the work were assembled, and, as well as time 
permitted, stitched and put into four cases, and Mr. Stevens 
with them entered a cab and drove to Downing Street and to 
the office of the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and deliv- 
ered, before 12 o'clock of that day, the last day pursuant to the 
Treaty, two copies of the American case to Lord Tenterden, the 
Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, who had been named as the 
British Agent. He then drove to General Schenck's office and 
returned to him one of the other copies reproduced in the place 
of the one which he had taken on the previous Saturday, and 
told General Schenck the story of what he had done. 

" Well," said I, "Mr. Stevens, that is a most interesting and 
wonderful story. Of course it has been told and gone well into 
history." *' No," said he, " never, save to a few persons, and 
you are one of that few, and it must never go into print as long 
as I live." "And," said I, "of course the United States Govern- 
ernment repaid you the expense of what you had done ?" To 
which he replied: " Never a cent of it." I said: " Why, what do 
you mean ?" Said he: " I never presented any bill or claim for 
it. The fact is that before Parliament assembled that evening 
the news of the service of the American case on the British Gov- 
ernment was well known to many, and the next day I was called 
upon by many, to obtain copies of it, and I sold to members of 
Parliament for a pound apiece every copy that I had to spare, 
and I realized more than enough to cover the expenditure." 
"Well," said I, "how do you account for the failure of the 
Washington authorities to comply with the terms of the Treaty?" 
" Oh," said Mr. Stevens, " when the next steamer arrived the 
bundle came. Instead of committing so important a matter to 
the hands of a special messenger to bring it across the Atlantic, 
or sending the number of necessary copies at the time that a 
single copy was sent to General Schenck and a single copy was 
sent to me, the bundle was entrusted to the custody of an ex- 



15 

press company, and as it was thought in time for the last steamer, 
but the express messenger, knowing nothing of the importance 
of the package, treated it like any other, and it reached New 
York after the steamer had sailed." 

To understand the importance of the act performed bv Mr. 
Stevens, we must remember that it saved the arbitration at 
Geneva to us, and that the award of that tribunal to America 
for the depredations of the Alabama and the Sumter and the 
Rebel vessels was a round sum of $15,500,000. 



LIBRftRV OF CONGRESS 



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013 709 454 (^ 



